I think I'm a part of the first generation of journalists to skip print media entirely, and I've learned a lot these last few years at Forbes. My work has appeared on TVOvermind, IGN, and most importantly, a segment on The Colbert Report at one point. Feel free to follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, write me on Facebook or just email at paultassi(at)gmail(dot)com. I'm also almost finished with my sci-fi novel series, The Earthborn Trilogy.

Could The Next Console Generation Lead To Video Game Oversharing?

There’s one buzzword that had gamers’ eyes rolling during many conferences at E3, and no, it wasn’t “Kinect.” Rather, it would be “social,” or its counterparts “social media” or “sharing,” which at least SonySony and MicrosoftMicrosoft want to ensure is a big part of their coming consoles.

Both are attempting to make it easy to stream content online, or share clips and such with friends across social media sites. Sony has so much faith in this new era of game info sharing that it even placed a dedicated “share” button on its controller.

To understand what social video game sharing might look like in the future, it’s worth examining what it’s like presently.

For the most part, there are two types of social sharing, amateur and professional (or near-professional). The first is one of the many useless items you see clogging up your FacebookFacebook newsfeed. It’s from people who have linked their Xbox Live or PSN accounts to their Facebook account, so every so often automated messages pop up saying what game they’re playing or, what new achievement they’ve just unlocked. Never have I seen so few comments on feed stories, as these ones almost always have none. This is more or less the current level of social sharing on today’s consoles, and it’s more irritating than useful.

Conversely, there’s the other level, which has skyrocketed in popularity alongside the rise of video and streaming services like YouTube and Twitch. There are now a legion of gamers who make good money or even full-time livings from creating video content on YouTube, Let’s Play videos or other sorts of gameplay or review shows, or from streaming their gameplay live. Top level players in games like League of Legends, Starcraft and Call of Duty stream their play live online drawing thousands or even tens of thousands of viewers, and the subsequent ad revenue that comes with them.

What Microsoft and Sony appear to be doing here is attempting to bridge the gap between casual and professional sharing. The average gamer does not have any idea how to A) record footage from their consoles and post it online or B) how to stream their play live. Most people with a bit of tech knowledge could likely figure it out, but it’s hardly a process anyone would deem “easy,” especially for the general public.

This is a little bit odd to the observer who has noted that Microsoft and Sony and their publisher friends have fought tooth and nail to keep gamers from putting their own gameplay footage on the internet. Unless they went with a major representative company like Machinima, of course. Fortunately, this seems like a reversal in course as they smartly realize that this is a great way for players to advertise the games they like, free of charge. Here’s what Double Fine’s Tim Schafer has to say about the practice:

“People want to share in a community around games, like when you’re on PS4 and you can see what your friend is playing. Being able to share things and talk about them, it lets your fans evangelise your games for you, which is a great step.”

There are a few ways this could go, flooding the market with amateur streams and highlight videos because of these new features. I could see how this could potentially be great in certain scenarios. Say a friend has a particularly harrowing and intense encounter in The Last of Us. Shared to Facebook, another friend sees the game in action, complete with friend 1′s commentary, and decides to pick the game up for himself.

Of course, there are downsides to this as well. Friend 1 could start sharing SO many gameplay videos that they crowd the newsfeed and make his other friends want to block him entirely as a result of his “oversharing.” Or if these videos get uploaded to YouTube, the site will be swamped with thousands upon thousands of amateur videos of footage their uploaders think is cool, when perhaps it isn’t. It may be harder for quality content to rise to the top when suddenly everyone in playing in the pool.

Overall though, I don’t see increased sharing as a net negative for these companies, or really even for users. As much as I hate the buzzwords as much as the next guy, an ability to easily create my own custom video game content appeals to me, and I’m sure it would for many others as well. For the publishers, it’s a no brainer, as it’s always been. It’s free advertising, and I’m not sure how it’s taken them this long to realize it.

Through this new sharing network, we’ll likely see new YouTube and Twitch stars rise, but the professionals who make a living in the scene now will probably be able to continue to do so if their content continues to go above and beyond that of what the average Joe can produce, or if they’re simply more skilled or funnier than everyone else making videos.

Social sharing is annoying when it’s useless, like glancing at a news feed story that tells me my friend has unlocked a new Tomb Raider trophy, but these new features seem to be allowing much more freedom for players to share their own experiences with others, and I see the potential as to why that could be a very cool thing.

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I think sharing was discussed during the “rewind” segment of PS4′s UI on IGN. They noted that the demo showed that the player had a group of friends called “PS4 lovers” he was sharing content with. If they will take a page from social media, they will probably have a filter option or subscription to friends element.

If you ever played Battlefield 3 on PC, then you already know what this is about. That game requries a the social networking website called Battlelog, which is pretty much Facebook for Battlefield 3 and Medal of Honor if anyone played it. I don’t look at my news feed at all…. It’s always full of the latest unlocks for people on my friend’s list. I really don’t care about any of it. If I really want to know if they have a specific item, I can check their profile. If they really want me to see their game footage, they can PM me to check out their page and watch it.

But is that a bad thing? Not really. It’s only there when I go onto Battlelog. Do I want to combine my Battlelog profile with my Facebook profile? Hell no. But everyone is trying to sync everything nowadays, and that’s what scares me. I don’t want Facebook integration on all my habits. I want a separate gamer profile.

“Social sharing is annoying when it’s useless, like glancing at a news feed story that tells me my friend has unlocked a new Tomb Raider trophy, but these new features seem to be allowing much more freedom for players to share their own experiences with others, and I see the potential as to why that could be a very cool thing.”

A thousand times yes. I never found the social feeds to have anything interesting in them, be it in games or on Skype or MSN Messenger. It’s always annoying and it’s always trivial stuff like “X person has gotten this achievement.” “X person has changed his/her avatar!” and so on.

Now, with the PS4s sharing stuff, the only thing I could imagine doing with it is playing some singleplayer game and having a friend play the same game, like… Dark Souls, and you can instantly set up a video for your friend, showing how you tackle the boss and the friend can like help out with tips and tricks. Or just showing some cool part of the world or where a secret is.

That’s probably what I would use it for, I don’t really just browse someones stream and tune in. I don’t follow any sort of streaming content actually since I really don’t have any time for it.

But yeah, I have said this before, this whole “social” thingy that goes into everything feels less social and more clutter and junk from what your friends ate to what achievement they unlocked. That to me isn’t really a social activity. It’s just browsing. For me, social activity is more in the lines of talking and engaging with people and getting responses. Like playing games online with your friends, hanging out, etc.

But yeah, I guess this thing is most likely aimed towards the amateur, semi-professional and professional streaming people who want to or make money out of it. As you said, I don’t think that many non-hardcore gamers care that much about streams of gameplay.

It could be good for some content producers, it might make it very easy to organise “fail montages” or the like, using videos submitted by their fanbase, so they can include videos from the less tech savy.

A few years ago I imagine people sniffed at the idea of “youtube content” Why listen to some teenager on the internet when you can have a professional on the TV? So no-one should rest easy about their future, but I think youtube viewers know what’s rubbish and what’s not, there will be funny clips that get loads of views, but it won’t be something every youtuber will be able to repeat every week. I wonder if all these easy sharing services will have the output video plastered with logos and watermarks, that might mean a budding video producer has to eventually invest in the capture equipment long term anyway.

I’m not sure oversharing is a problem here. Machinima, Gamespot (CBS), Game Trailer, Twitch are offering quality content in the forms of previews, reviews, trailers, and live-game-play that gaming teens just can’t compete with. Microsoft and Sony have it right -social media is free press.

It is still messed up….I have to install those big games and yet I still have to have the disc to play it…..kids mess it up, I got the whole game on the drive but can’t play it….I install a program on my hard drive for the computer and I don’t need to put the disc in the computer to run it….I can even back it up….can’t do that with these games.